China Vista (www.chinavista.com) filed the lawsuit with the Beijing Secondary People's Court in May, alleging that Tom.com had copied 13 articles, 46 pictures and 26 webpages from its website since April.

"None of our works copied by Tom.com's website gave the authors' names on them," said Han Li, China Vista's assistant manager.

China Vista said plagiarism of its Web pages had been reported to the Notary Public Office of Xiamen in April.

China Vista is seeking 600,000 yuan (US$72,000) in compensation.

Tom.com was willing to settle the case out of the court, but would not pay that large a sum, according to an official with the site.

Tom.com had proposed a partnership with China Vista, said the plaintiff. In the proposal, Tom.com offered China Vista an advertising programme on its website worth of 25,900 yuan (US$3,100). The proposal was turned down by China Vista.

(China Daily 08/21/2001)